Piper's Point of View
by alwaysrememberthelight
Summary: Piper's first person narrative for pages 100 - 105 in Mark of Athena.


**Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Rick Riordan. From Mark of Athena pages 100-105 rewritten in Piper's first person**

I wanted to give up. I wouldn't have used the knife otherwise, but…I was just sitting there, waiting for Jason to wake up. I hadn't felt so hopeless and alone before.

Jason was so pale; he might've been dead. The only thing that assured me that he wasn't was his faint pulse.

The sickening sound of that brick hitting his forehead replayed over and over again in my head. If only he hadn't shielded me from the Romans. I would've given anything for this not to happen, for Jason to just be okay.

I wasn't sure if he'd be okay when he woke up. We managed to force-feed him nectar and ambrosia, but what if that wasn't enough? What if he lost his memories again? What if he forgot _me_?

I wanted to hit myself. Why should I care if Jason forgot me? As long as he was okay, I'd be happy. That's what I told myself anyway. I still felt selfish.

Coach Hedge was in his room next door, humming "Stars and Stripes Forever" or some other military song. I assumed he was reading back issues of _Guns & Ammo _magazine, the satellite TV being out and all. At least he was on the Argo with me; he wasn't a bad chaperone.

I owed him so much. He helped my dad get back on his feet and asked his girlfriend, Mellie, to take care of our household so he could help us out on the quest.

I suspected that Coach going back to Camp Half Blood wasn't really all his idea. My dad and Mellie had asked what was wrong whenever I called the weeks before, and maybe something in my voice tipped them off.

What I really needed was someone to share the visions with, but I couldn't. They were far too disturbing. I couldn't tell my dad, he'd taken a potion that erased all my demigod secrets from his memory, but he could tell when I was upset. I'm almost completely positive Dad asked Coach to look out for me.

_Don't draw the blade,_ I told myself. _It'll only make you feel worse. _

But the temptation was too great. I unsheathed Katoptris.

Katoptris didn't look very special, just a triangular blade with an unadorned hilt, but it had once been owned by Helen of Troy. She had used it as a looking glass.

I looked into the bronze blade. At first I only saw my reflection, then light rippled across the metal.

I saw a crowd of Roman demigods gathered in the forum. That blond scarecrow kid was speaking to them, shaking his fist. I couldn't hear any words, but the gist was pretty obvious: _We need to kill those Greeks!_

I groaned.

Reyna stood to the side. Her face was tight with suppressed emotion. I couldn't tell what it was. Bitterness? Anger?

Honestly, I was ready to hate Reyna, but I really couldn't. Reyna had really kept her feelings in check during the feast in the forum, and that was impressive considering that it was pretty obvious that there had been something between her and Jason.

Reyna had sized up Jason and I's relationship as soon as we stepped off the Argo. As a daughter of Aphrodite, I can tell stuff like that. But Reyna had stayed polite and in control. She gave us Greeks a fair chance…right up until the Argo II started destroying her city.

She'd almost made me feel guilty about being Jason's girlfriend, but that was silly. Jason hadn't ever _been_ Reyna's boyfriend, not really. That's what Jason told me, and I trust him.

Maybe she wasn't so bad, but it didn't matter and I'd never get to know her better. We messed up the chance for peace. My power of persuasion had done absolutely no good, and that didn't help my feeling of helplessness.

I was afraid I hadn't tried hard enough. Maybe I never wanted to be friends with the Romans. Maybe I was too worried about losing Jason to his old life. Maybe I had, unconsciously, not put my best effort into the charmspeak.

And now Jason was hurt. The ship had been almost destroyed. And according to my dagger, that crazy teddy-bear-strangling kid was whipping the Romans into a war frenzy.

And it was possibly all my fault.

The scene in my blade shifted. There was a rapid series of images I'd seen before, but didn't understand: Jason riding into battle on horseback, his eyes gold instead of blue; a woman in an old-fashioned Southern belle dress, standing in an oceanside park with palm trees; a bull with the face of a feared man, rising out of a river; a rope on a pulley system, lifting a large bronze vase out of a pit.

Then there was the worst vision: Jason, Percy, and I standing waist-deep in water at the bottom of a dark circular chamber, like a giant well. Ghostly shapes moved through the water as it rose rapidly. I clawed at the wall, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The water reached our chests. Jason was pulled under. Percy stumbled and disappeared. The vision made my heart race.

_How can a child of the sea god drown?_ I asked myself.

I watched myself, alone and thrashing in the dark, until the water rose over my head.

I shut my eyes tightly.

_Don't show me that again. Show me something helpful._

I took a deep breath and looked back into the blade.

I saw an empty highway cutting between fields of wheat and sunflowers. A mileage marker read: Topeka 32. On the shoulder of the road stood a man in khaki shorts and a purple camp shirt. His face was lost in the shadow of a broad hat, the brim wreathed in the leafy vines. He held up a silver goblet and beckoned to me. Somehow, I knew that he was offering em some sort of gift–a cure, or an antidote. But for what?

"Hey," Jason croaked.

I jumped a little and dropped my knife. "You're awake!"

"Don't sound so surprised." Jason touched his bandaged head and frowned. "What…what happened? I remember the explosions, and–"

"You remember who I am?"  
Jason tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful wince. "Last I checked, you were my awesome girlfriend Piper. Unless something has changed since I was out." The look on his face when he said the last part almost killed me. It was joking, but his eyes were worried, like he actually considered the possibility that I was no longer his girlfriend.

I wanted to cry. Jason was okay, and he remembered me!

I helped him sit up and gave him some nectar to sip while I brought him to up speed. I was just explaining Leo's plan to fix the ship when she heard horse hooves clomping across the deck over their heads.

Moments later, Leo and Hazel stumbled to a stop in the doorway, carrying a large sheet of hammered bronze between them.

"Gods of Olympus." I stared at Leo, trying not to laugh. "What happened to you?"  
His hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a T-shirt that read _Hot Stuff, Bad Boy,_ and _Team Leo._

"Long story," he said.

_I bet._

"Others back yet?" he asked.

"Not yet," I said.

Leo cursed. Then he noticed Jason sitting up, and his face brightened. I smiled. "Hey, man! Glad you're better. I'll be in the engine room."

He ran off with the sheet of bronze, leaving Hazel in the doorway.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "_Team Leo?_"

_This has got to some story._

"We met Narcissus," Hazel said, leaving more confused than before. "Also Nemesis, the revenge goddess."

Jason sighed. "I miss all the fun.


End file.
